Food

Getting used to city living took some time. In San Diego we had to drive to go almost anywhere. Now we don’t own a car; instead, we walk or take public transportation everywhere. We get our daily steps in with little effort but it does make errands like grocery shopping a little more of an ordeal.

I thought I would share a couple things that make city living — sans car — a little bit easier.

Instacart delivers groceries from local stores in two hours. Through the website or their app, I can select the store and groceries we need each week — usually from Giant or Whole Foods. One of the Instacart shoppers grabs everything on the list and the items are delivered to our apartment in about two hours. If something on the list isn’t in stock, they send a message through the app explaining what they can replace it with. I’ve only had one incident involving an expired item being delivered. I informed Instacart and they credited my account within twenty four hours!

This is not a joke. Several weeks ago I purchased an electric scooter and have zero buyer’s remorse. I used to take the D.C. metro to work and back every single day. Between the metro bursting into flames during my commute (on more than one occasion) and it taking anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour to go less than three miles, I ditched the metro for an electric scooter that gets me to work in fifteen minutes. On a two hour charge I can go about eight miles at speeds of up to 15 mph. Yes, I look ridiculous. But I don’t care! If you’re looking for an eco-friendly and fun way to get to work in the city this is thing is for you!

Photo credit: my charming husband

I’ve had a terrible cold/ cough situation since the day after Thanksgiving, so that’s been a fun start to the Christmas festivities. I feel like I always say work has been busy in these posts, but work has been busy. Challenging and great. And busy.

Matt and I are barreling towards a two week vacation at my parent’s place in Alabama that will include attending a Menorah lighting at the University of Alabama and becoming certified in handgun safety! The party truly never stops.

I was planning to post a recipe after I did some baking for my office Christmas party. Funny story. I was planning to make these Dirty Chai Donut Muffins but when I went to the store to get ingredients, they were OUT OF BAKING POWDER. Turns out, it’s a very crucial ingredient when making baked goods, and without it, your muffins will more closely resemble hockey pucks than fluffy muffins. After Sunday night panic set in, I was able to improvise and churn out some chai sugar cookies. They turned out okay!

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 3/4 cups white sugar

2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

What you do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a medium bowl combine sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, allspice and black pepper.

Remove 1/4 cup of the sugar-spice mixture, set aside to reserve for rolling the cookies.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar-spice mixture until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Beat in egg and vanilla extract, combine until fully incorporated. Slowly blend in dry ingredients mixing until just combined. Using a small scoop (2 teaspoons) roll dough into balls and then into the reserved sugar-spice mixture. Place dough balls on prepared baking sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Let stand on baking sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.

I had the best of intentions to film a video during this four day Thanksgiving vacation. Unfortunately, I came down with a nasty bug Friday night and since then have mostly been sleeping. I was able to snap a few pictures during our quiet Thanksgiving Day meal.

This Thanksgiving was just Matt and me at home in our little basement apartment. It was perfect. I spent the day cooking a ‘lil Butterball turkey and all the other Thanksgiving accoutrements, including Matt’s mom’s English muffin bread and my mom’s cranberry sauce.

We took a quiet walk around our Le Droit Park neighborhood while the bird finished up roasting. Usually it’s bustling with cars, open bistros, and buskers, but it was almost silent on Turkey Day.

And Thanksgiving isn’t complete without watching at least two classic movies. A family tradition in our house is Planes, Trains, and Automobilesstarring John Candy and Steve Martin.

This was the second time I used Gordon Ramsay’s herb butter rub on our bird. I couldn’t find this particular recipe online. I saw him make it on a show he did for BBC and wrote it down a couple years ago. It’s so easy and makes the skin crispy and fragrant. And Matt did a great job carving it!

Our place is too small for a table, so we had our dinner diner style at the counter on our bar stools. We shared what we are thankful for this year and rounded out the night going to the movies to see Arrival starring Amy Adams. I loved it! Seriously, I may do an entire post about the film, I loved it so much.